(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew)Why is it okay to show grisly death photos of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or Gaddafi but not of American military contractors hanging in Fallujah or Daniel Pearl having his throat slit open

I doubt anyone would call me a “Lefty Shill” so let me take this opportunity to ask, “WTF?” We DIDN’T show grisly death photo’s of Hussein or Usama! Much of your “point” is lost on me….

Because race is innate and cannot be changed. However, a rich, greedy, sommbitch can give everything away to the people and change his class. The fact that he doesn't do something so obviously easy makes him fair game.

One can condemn the misuse of power, its exploitation etc by the one percent because because these are a result of an individual's actions while the pigment of one's skin is inherited and only the foolish condemn what is beyond an individual 's control.

"I love this question. Not that it will be answered well from the left. ..."

It's a question posed from the right on the theory that it will trouble the left, but it's not what a free-market type righty should ask. The obvious answer is that race is immutable and there is nothing about it that justifies hatred. But "class difference" in America is really just wealth distribution, and you can get and lose money, through your own efforts, and you can use government to protect your financial interests and to channel money to yourself and to people you like. That means wealth distribution is always in play politically, and your ideas about whether it's done rightly or wrongly generate emotion that may be projected onto the people you think are getting what they should not. It would be better to be perfectly rational and accurate, but the emotional aura around this debate is not as pernicious as racial bigotry.

It is a very easy question.

And, btw, I didn't read the piece Glenn linked to because a welter of ads got in the way.

That means wealth distribution is always in play politically, and your ideas about whether it's done rightly or wrongly generate emotion that may be projected onto the people you think are getting what they should not.

I don't know if you want to go down that path, Althouse. Particularly when the objects of wealth distribution in this country are highly correlated with race.

It is moral to protect the tribe from enemies.It is all about enemy identification.

But that process is warped because Marxists have discovered an important fact:Killing off the poor race has little upside. Who will do the work afterwards? But killing off the owners of property has a huge upside. It's called loot/wealth/ treasure/ booty.

Just follow the money and the treasury looters nobly stopping CO2 pollution will be found dividing up the loot.

"...wealth distribution is always in play politically, and your ideas about whether it's done rightly or wrongly generate emotion that may be projected onto the people you think are getting what they should not."

That's true. People I don't like (not hate) include those who think the major food stamp food groups are: Pepsi, Doritos, Lays, Oreos, and Breyers.

OK, that’s ONE of the three data points you submitted…we have NO “grisly” photo’s of Usama…and we have only a few boot-legged photo’s of Saddam…So again I ask, “where are all these photo’s you talk of?’’’ The reality is ONLY Qaddafi is on the front page of Drudge, and ONLY Qaddafi made the front page…NO Photo’s of Usama have been made public, and may NEVER be…Your “point” seems ill-supported.

"One can condemn the misuse of power, its exploitation etc by the one percent because because these are a result of an individual's actions while the pigment of one's skin is inherited"

I think this is the case, though a lot of class hatred is assumptions of misuse of power rather than actual condemning of power. The rich get lumped together as though they are just contemporary iterations of 18th century French royalty. But that's not the case, which is why there is pushback. However, that reflects completely different assumptions about what class differences are.

Indeed, in America there are spaces where class makes absolutely no distinction, which suggests it's not as embedded in our culture as some might like to think.

The distinction in RV's quote also goes straight to the arguments over gay rights. Is homosexuality an inherited identity or is it the "misuse of power," with power defined as human procreative potency. How a rich person spends their money on extravagances shouldn't concern me any more than who a guy has sex with.

And so both basically boil down to moral positions on how individual actions affect the broader moral climate. Should we impose our morality on someone else's choice about how to use their body/wealth?

With race, it's so clearly not a choice the argument is more clear. Though, the issues get much more complicated as more and more expressions are embedded in what a race is.

The reverse is true. Race hatred is morally superior to class hatred because killing another race, the endgame of race hatred, is natural, whereas killing your own kind, the endgame of class hatred, is unnatural. Witness the near silence of our morally correct MSM in the face of the steady low level (but not low level to the one who is killed) killing of whites by blacks in America.

Professor, I beg to differ. Having grown up in New England, I saw the difference between class and wealth. The "old rich" didn't consider the "new rich" of their same class, even if they had more wealth than them. Never equate wealth and class.

On a lighter note, the movie, Caddy Shack dealt w/ this in a slapstick way.

The debate in America and the world is not about class struggles, this is a war between parasites and producers, period. For Europe they are entitlement junkies hooked on the narcotic of big government handouts, acting irrational and violent as they come down off a long bender. In America they are petulant children who at their poorest still live within a wealth class that puts them in the top 10 % of the world. They have intentionally obfuscated the right to pursue happiness with a right to be happy believing a spoiled tantrum and damaging another’s property is the equivalent of an articulated idea and now frustrated no one else sees it that way.

>>Why is it OK for Lefty jerks to come here and pose stupid hypotheticals when they know it's never been done?<<

Until the website was updated a few minutes ago, Drudge Report carried the headline "Who's Next" below a picture of a dead Gaddafi with visible head wounds and blood streaming down his face.It wouldn't be difficult to pull up a cached copy of the webpage. So that disposes of your "never been done" claim." Other U.S. media outlets carried photos and video of Saddam Hussein's hanging.

Class hatred is not, in any way, shape, or form, morally superior to race hatred.

It is morally superior to hate the actions of an individual who uses their wealth or power to benefit themselves at the expense of others. The same for someone who uses their physical strength or a weapon for the same purpose.

But, just as you should not blame all blacks for a high-crime rate in a particular minority neighborhood, you should not blame all the wealthy just because some of them use their wealth to game the system in a way that hurts others.

The fact that class can be changed while race cannot is immaterial. Neither is inherently wrong or harmful to others, therefore neither is an acceptable target of hatred.

Class hatred, at least those as espoused by the OWS, is a product of "fairness" taught at the public schools; where everybody gets an "award" and nobody fails. All the kids in sports these days get to play, regardless of ability. There is less reward for success, and much less penalty for failure. It is, perhaps, the most damning aspect of teaching "socialism" in the schools. (as an side, do you suppose the 1% send their children to public schools, or a more rigid, demanding, and structured private school; where reward and failure are honestly instructed).

Children these days are unfamiliar with failure. Failure is an implicit by-product of freedom. In the U.S. you can choose any profession, and do all things necessary to prepare/educate/train to be in that profession. But it is not a guarantee that you will succeed in your endeavor.

The OWS complain, in part, that they have jumped through the necessary hoops, have accumulated student loan debt, and have nothing to show for it. And that, somehow, is everybody else's fault.

They have no experience with failure - because they have never learned it. It is unfortunate, because failure is powerful motivation. It is a recognition of personal responsibility.

Imagine that someone came up with gene therapy that could take all of the genetic characteristics associated with one race and replace them with those associated with another race, and at the same time adjust skin color, hair color and texture, etc, such that you literally could change your race.

Why is it OK for Lefty jerks to come here and pose stupid hypotheticals when they know it's never been done?

Until the website was updated a few minutes ago, Drudge Report carried the headline "Who's Next" below a picture of a dead Gaddafi with visible head wounds and blood streaming down his face.It wouldn't be difficult to pull up a cached copy of the webpage. So that disposes of your "never been done" claim." Other U.S. media outlets carried photos and video of Saddam Hussein's hanging.

I may be many things but "lefty jerk" isn't one.

Never saw any photos of dead Saddam and what Drudge picks up is off Jazeera and they have a Conan the Barbarian sensibility about dead guys over there.

I'll say it again, it's not something you see often, if at all, in the American media.

We just got notice that Occupy Philadelphia protesters will march from City Hall to the University of Pennsylvania tomorrow afternoon to protest an appearance by Eric Cantor. No partisan politics there. Also, it will make navigating around Center City a pain in the ass tomorrow.

In the early 80s in the old European neighborhoods of Shanghai one got a good look at the end of class hatred. The mansions all had their windows thrown open and it was easy enough to see that every room had become the home of a large family. It was squalor in an opulent shell. I am sure that when the first poor families moved into these homes they were thrilled. Shortly they became the tenements from which they had moved. Same as it ever was.

But "class difference" in America is really just wealth distribution, and you can get and lose money, through your own efforts, and you can use government to protect your financial interests and to channel money to yourself and to people you like

This practice was not that widespread until the President you voted for took office.

Of course the easy and obvious answer is that race is an immutable characteristic and class is not. Except that's changing. Race is starting to be defined by perception and even ideology, things that can be changed by saying the right things and posing the right way. Class is starting to feel like something that is very very difficult to change.

We just got notice that Occupy Philadelphia protesters will march from City Hall to the University of Pennsylvania tomorrow afternoon to protest an appearance by Eric Cantor. No partisan politics there. Also, it will make navigating around Center City a pain in the ass tomorrow.

They're letting Cantor speak at Penn?

Love to know how that came about.

Ah, for the good old days when Frank Rizzo was mayor or, better yet, police commissioner. It would end with a bang, then a whimper.

PS Do you live in town or commute? I imagine coming off the Schuylkill will be fun.

Ann Althouse said..."How much control do you have over your own class?"

Ask Herman Cain...

Asked about his impressions of the Occupy Wall Street dissidents, Cain declared: "Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself " -- a statement that overlooks the desperation with which millions, a disproportionate number of whom are black, strive to stave off impoverishment and unemployment. Later, when Cain perceived the impolitic character of his comment, he tried to minimize it, asserting that he was only referring to the protesters and not to the impoverished or unemployed in general. That attempt at damage control rings false, however, especially in light of his further comment: "It is not a person's fault if they succeeded, it is a person's fault if they failed."

10/20/11 9:59 AM

Herman Cain is a self made man. Barack Obama is an affirmative action hire. That's the difference. Cain shouldn't have backed down. Most poor people other than the deserving poor are poor because they make bad choices and continue to do so. And welfare is the enabler that allows a large number of people to indulge in foolish choices and bad behavior.

Accepting a concept which relies on incidental features (which are increasingly malleable) is to remain ignorant of "Tutsi slaughter Hutu slaughter Tutsi" and similar cycles.

With respect to class, especially an economic class, the issue of merit is not relative but absolute disparities.

The issue of merit in all class conflicts is one of individual dignity. That is why individuals of conscience rejected slavery as unacceptable in favor of voluntary exploitation (e.g., economic exchange, charitable works and donations) and measured liberty in a market system and free society, respectively.

The question can be answered based on the outcomes the conflicts engender.

The characteristics of each race will determine its viability. The consideration for individual dignity, from the poorest to richest, will determine a compromise.

Ann says its easy to answer but proceeds not to answer it. First she ignores the fact the class distinctions can and do exist from birth for some. next she explains why class hatred is easier without explaining why that makes *better*. Gender change is possible so Althouse CHOOSES to be female. Does that make mysogyny better than race hatred? When we get skin color changing dna technology will that prejudice become better?

No, we just loathe people who gamble with other peoples' money, claim they are doing something productive and then expect the taxpayers to bail them out when it all goes wrong.

Hi Bozo.

The President you voted for bailed these people out.

The Republican party stood against TARP.PS,“Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data.”

You'll vote for that President again demonstrating just how principled you are, clown.

"It seems to me that the real question is whether -- and when --hatred itself is morally acceptable."

But Glenn's question assumes there are levels of morality and that racial hatred might not be obviously worse than class hatred. I think "hatred" is an unnecessarily extreme word. I think "antagonism" or "antipathy" would be more like what some Americans might feel about some races and classes. But anyway, you can say that the best moral position is no hatred at all and still have an opinion about the relative morality of different kinds of hatred.

Bullshit, it passed 75-24 (Ted Kennedy didn't vote), including 24-15 Republican, in the Senate and the house Republicans voted 108-91 against it. That means 45.7% of the House Republicans voted for it.

But Glenn's question assumes there are levels of morality and that racial hatred might not be obviously worse than class hatred.

Considering you, Glenn, and much of the current Republican Party have nothing but contempt for people below the top 20% in income in this country, I would think you and he would be arguing that class hatred is morally superior to race hatred.

Althouse NOW says "But Glenn's question assumes there are levels of morality and that racial hatred might not be obviously worse than class hatred. I think "hatred" is an unnecessarily extreme word. "

But of course any question can be made easy to answer if you CHANGE it. Glenn's question it seems to me assumes that some of the animosity really does amount to hatred, and he asks why that hatred is less odious. He doesn't ask why 'some level of animosity' blah blah. He specifies the level that is of interest, he asks why the HATRED blah blah.

Freder Frederson wrote:You do realize that TARP was passed on October 3,2008?

You do realize that TARP was passed by the House and Senate, which were both firmly in the hands of the Democratic Party?

Or are you just ignorant, stupid or lying?

The question rebounds on you, Frederson. Based on the thin evidence available from your blog comments you are none of these things. I would never make such a rash accusation from any evidence apparent here. However, your tone doesn't lead me to believe you are a gentleman.

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew) No, we just loathe people who gamble with other peoples' money, claim they are doing something productive and then expect the taxpayers to bail them out when it all goes wrong

So do I, but what does that have to do with Solyndra and Green Energy Loans?

OH WAIT, you’re talking about Wall Street…you’re right hooking Institutional (CalPERS, CalSTRS, SEUI, AFL-CIO) investors and their pension funds or individual investors [401(k) or Roth IRA’s] and their pension funds with growth opportunities, or hooking individual investors (Microsoft, Apple, Ford) or financial units (banks, credit unions) with money in order to fund capital investments is “Gambling” and certainly NOT “productive.”

Get rid of Wall Street and then get a car or house loan, or a business expansion loan, or capital for expansion ingneral, and then get back to me about your ability retire, as well.

Get rid of Wall Street and then get a car or house loan, or a business expansion loan, or capital for expansion ingneral, and then get back to me about your ability retire, as well.

There was a time, not so long ago really, when most car and home loans were made by local banks that served the local community. They also held onto the notes through the life of the loan. The concept that slicing and dicing loans and reselling them dozens of times was the way to make money off a mortgage was seen as ludicrous.

As for the ability to retire, most people were better off when companies offered pensions and pension funds weren't deliberately starved or eliminated to increase profits and dividends in order to please Wall Street.

You do realize that TARP was passed by the House and Senate, which were both firmly in the hands of the Democratic Party?

And I provided the vote breakdown above which proves that the Republicans did not "stand against TARP" as Jay claimed or that Obama was responsible for bailing those people out. That would have been George W. Bush

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew) There was a time, not so long ago really, when most car and home loans were made by local banks that served the local community. They also held onto the notes through the life of the loan. The concept that slicing and dicing loans and reselling them dozens of times was the way to make money off a mortgage was seen as ludicrous.

Because those “local banks” just GREW THEIR OWN MONEY? Where do you think the Podunk First united Bank and Trust got it’s money from, Freder? From Wall Street!

As for the ability to retire, most people were better off when companies offered pensions and pension funds weren't deliberately starved or eliminated to increase profits and dividends in order to please Wall StreetAnd the fact that “defined benefits” plans became UNSUSTAINABLE had nothing to do with it, then? I’m sorry Freder, I have a Madonna Studies Degree, and sadly, it seems I’m more economically literate than you…

President-elect Barack Obama told Democratic senators in a closed lunch today that he needs the second $350 billion authorized by Congress as part of the TARP legislation last year and that he'll veto any move by Congress to cut that funding off.

Don't worry freeder, you'll come up with some lame excuse to vote for Obama.

The obvious answer is that race is immutable and there is nothing about it that justifies hatred.

There are two arguments there, and both are weak.

The second argument, that there is nothing about race that justifies hatred, is the stronger argument but still doesn't explain why class hatred is better than race hatred. Certainly there is nothing about being a member of a different race that justifies hatred, but there is also nothing about being wealthier than me that justifies hatred. Both are unfortunate facets of human nature that everyone is guilty of to some extent: xenophobia in the first case, envy in the second.

The other argument, that race is immutable, is a non-sequiteur. It makes more sense to hate someone for the things they can't change than it does to hate them for the things they can -- in the latter case, you can try to change or convert them from "bad" to "good". In the former case you cannot: they are inherently "bad". All you can do is argue (as you did above) that the thing they can change isn't really bad.

Think for a second about the implications of your argument. Does this mean that anti-black racism would be socially acceptable if blacks could change their race via an inexpensive medical procedure? After all, while they may have been born black (just as I was born middle class and Warren Buffet's kids were born rich), but they didn't have to stay that way. Of course not. If blacks could change their race you would immediately discard the "racism is bad because race can't be changed" argument and revert to the "there's nothing wrong with being black" argument".

Well, explain why it is bad that you have more money than I do. I look forward to hearing it.

The vote (House and Senate combined) was 123-115 against. So although you are indeed correct, your original claim was that the "Republican party stood against it." A 51.7% majority, not to mention that the bill was pushed and signed by Bush, is hardly the party standing against it.

Freder they became unsustainable because, in many cases, they STARTED unsustainable…A defined benefits plan says “’I’ will pay ‘you’ $2,000/month, for a term extending from 20 October 20, 2011 until the day you die.” Well implicit in that is that the company continues to exist, and revenues continue to grow and the company remains profitable…in the case of GM that may have been true 1945-72, but subsequent, it was UNTRUE, and hence the “promise” made in a post-1972 era was a LIE, more than a promise…

Whereas with a 401(k) and an IRA you can see, what you have, and can plan around your real benefits, as opposed to a “promise” made 20 years ago when you joined accompany.

Old Style Defined Benefit plans also became unsustainable, for GM, when the pensioners got voting rights on contracts, and the pensioners out-numbered the workers, meaning the majority sweetened their own pie, at the expense of GM and the workers, supporter the plan…..but that is more company specific. Now GM and the UAW want to pass their unsustainable pension promises onto the US taxpayer.

I disagree. Hatred, like any other emotion, can be channeled into productive activity, but hatred is supreme in it's ability to consume the one feeling it. It's the double-bladed monofilament knife and the loaded gun without a safety, but that doesn't mean it can't keep you going when all else has given way.

I have always taught my kids not to use the word hate when describing the mundane and they have honored me, so far at least, by doing so. I've always said it's a last resort, a plan Z, and only then if it's directed at something that must be destroyed.Thus, it doesn't apply to much in the real world, but that doesn't mean it can't and that doesn't mean it won't.

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew) a plan Z, and only then if it's directed at something that must be destroyed

I see what you’re doing here..dood. You are fomenting Zombie-phobia…you sir are a Zombaphobe! Plan “Z” indeed…..*HARRUMPF*

I tend to agree, Hatred is a useful short-run tool…dood pops into your fighting position with the AK and bayonet…I HATE this man, with a purple passion…I will:1) Shoot him;2) Bayonet him;3) Beat him with the butt stock;4) Use a knife on him;5) Use a rock on him; or6) Throttle him with my bare hands!Anything to make him, “go away.” Without that “hatred” and the adrenal rush, you die….

However, in the Long-run Hatred is a poor emotion…Hate destroys, it does not build. So, one can only usefully channel Hatred into a short-term issue/problem…in the Long-run it merely destroys. Just my $.02…..

(The Uncredentialed, Crypto Jew) Plan Z, in this case, as it's the last letter in the alphabet in keeping with the "only as a last resort" theme

I heard the Zombaphobia Dog Whistle loud and clear…and you can bet all of the Walker Liberation Front (WLF) heard it too, we’ll be shambling by to make our unhappiness clear with you and your elected representatives. I say Equal Rights for the Undead! I say a good pair of shoes are everyone’s feet and a brain in every pot!

But Glenn's question assumes there are levels of morality and that racial hatred might not be obviously worse than class hatred.

Hold up, here! I thought Glenn's question meant: Why do people who go ballistic over any hint of hatred based on race encourage hatred based on class? So it isn't about how racial hatred might not be obviously worse, it is about how class hatred is accepted. Those OWS folks claim a kind of superior morality in their hatred and Glenn is asking how that could be.

As for hatred being wrong, sure, that's what I tell my kids, too. But I also tell them that I hate communism because communism is evil.

The obvious answer is that race is immutable and there is nothing about it that justifies hatred.

This is an inherently racist statement. It presupposes that race is real, and not a social construct. You have some outlier types on the Right who agree with you - Steven Sailer and John Derbyshire spring immediately to mind - but a true anti-racist Right would be doing all it could to eradicate the concept of race.

You don't combat racial prejudice by making allowances, you fight it by making race meaningless. That, after all, is the traditional American method for fighting class hatred - to refuse to accept the logic of class.

And I still say this ties into your continued refusal to acknowledge that you, yourself, display quite significant class prejudice. Class isn't about money, it's about social status. Look at the collapse of the British gentry in the interwar period - they were at the very top of the British class system, but punishing estate and property taxes created an impoverished upper class.

Insty could have used a better word than "hate." I think he's just trying to ask something like this:

Why is the race card so much more effective an intimidation tactic than the "class war" card is? Why is it perfectly acceptable to call Tea Partiers "racists" but totally over the top to call the OWS mob "communists"?

16 miliions of Stalin´s victims were peasants. Mostly were killed because of their racial or etnic origin from Cosack to ucranian. From asian people to german descendants.They were not for the most real class enemies.2 millions were communists.Trial? the definition of genocide unlike crimes against humanity does not include political motives.Last Exit to Utopia: The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era by JF Revel tried to answer the question

The nazis were aryan and anti-semitic--no shit. But there were political motivations as well--protests against the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles for one. There was opposition to the left (eg bolsheviks) o german liberals, ie the SPD --many thousands of whom were rounded up and imprisoned or killed. (so much for the Jonah Goldberg crapola)-- Prager also overlooks the troubling fact that the nazis killed 3 million+ catholic poles;ie there was more to it than the tragedy of the jews--it was nationalist hysteria as much as racist.

Moreover opposition to the capitalist system is not just.."get the rich"--another of Prager's overgeneralizations.

"Why is it okay to show grisly death photos of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or Gaddafi but not of American military contractors hanging in Fallujah or Daniel Pearl having his throat slit open?"

in the same vein, why is it acceptable for a home owner to shoot someone who broke into their home and tries to kill them, but we lock up the guy who breaks into a home and successfully kills the homeowner? Why, James. Why? They ARE totally equivalent, why do we treat them so differently? Must be the violence inherent in the system.

The word "hatred" is interesting in this question. Racists have contempt for other races; racists think they're better because of their race. I guess "classists" do the same, are snobs about being "upper class" or "lower class" or "working class" or whateverthefuck class is in style in their minds. This contempt is not necessarily accompanied by hatred. Hatred can come into play when these comfortable assumptions and conceits are challenged and thwarted. Neither "class hatred" nor "race hatred" is moral, much less morally superior the one to the other. Neither is better than the other. It's people hating other people because they don't conform to a belief system.

If the question is meant to ask "why is class warfare morally superior to race warfare?", the ruling class would say, "whatever works for us is fine by us." It's moot to them. After all, Slow Joe is threatening rape and murder if Obama's jobs bill doesn't pass.

"In it, the point is made that Nazis murdered lots of people mostly on the basis of race; whereas Marxists murdered many more people at least partly (if not mostly) on the basis of class."

Weren't the killing fields of Cambodia also due to class hatred?

I'd guess that class hatred has massacred more people in History than racial hatred.

And really... wasn't the massacre of Jews in Germany actually a case of class hatred? That's why the anti-bank protests slip into a sort of anti-Semitic tone. How much of it was racial hatred and how much of it was the perception that Jews had more stuff and it wasn't fair?

Woah woah woah. I think we're making a huge category error here. Everyone launched into - well, they're rich and upper-crust, they can and should be hated. What we're all missing is the parable of the Kulak. The Soviets managed to convince the peasants that the peasants who had 5% more wealth than them - the rich peasants if you will - weren't worthy of life. So, today if you say it's ok to cast stones at billionaires and millionaires, tomorrow it will be ok to cast stones at the guy who makes 55k to your 50k. You watch.

"Moreover opposition to the capitalist system is not just.."get the rich"--another of Prager's overgeneralizations."

True. I think that opposition to the capitalist system is mostly based on the fantasy that there are other viable options.

I just got yet another email from a local politician explaining that some big corporation paid no taxes. There are two things wrong with that (and I might actually write a letter to the editor or something because the emails are insulting and piss me off). The first thing wrong with it is that they do pay taxes, lots of taxes, in the same way that an employee who pays no income tax pays a whole bunch of other taxes before the pay check is issued. The second thing wrong with it is that the reason that all of the tax write offs and loopholes exist for big business is because the government (as an extension of the will of the people) intended to manipulate the behavior of corporations so that they would expand and invest and hire more people.

So the question becomes (once the "no taxes" lie is set aside) why do Dem politicians suddenly want to ignore an incentive system intended to induce business to behave the way we want them to? Is it just cynical electioneering? Or do they really think we'd be better off with a different tax philosophy?

Personally, I think that the government mucks up anything it intends to incentivize, but we're talking Democrats here, not sorta-libertarians.

"The obvious answer is that race is immutable and there is nothing about it that justifies hatred. But "class difference" in America is really just wealth distribution, and you can get and lose money, through your own efforts, and you can use government to protect your financial interests and to channel money to yourself and to people you like."

Don't be silly. Class is nearly as immutable as race. Infact, the two are correlated. Look at any stats. Why are jews being attacked as the 1% by some protesters? Why are so many jews disproportionately in the 1%. Why have so many jews won nobel prizes in America, despite being a minority. It's because they are good at those respective things needed to generate wealth and win nobel prizes.

Why does one person have drive, and another person lazy? At the very least, the answer is partially due to genetics, as immutable as race. Why are 98 of the last 100 sprinters in the 100 yard dash in the Olympics of west African decent? You can go on about physical qualities that make someone better at some thing or another.

If you give a poor person 2 million dollars, how long before they blow it all? If you give a high class person 2 million dollars, how long before they turn it into $4 million?

As a final question, if a majority could vote to take a minorities race away (bleach their skin), would it be moral to do so?